In rural Houbi, on the sweltering plains of southern Taiwan, low-rise buildings covered in black mesh and studded with big fans extend for nearly 2km in each direction. Tucked into the rice fields, they are barely visible to the passer-by.

This is the home of Taiwan’s other great export success, orchids — much less familiar than the country’s semiconductors but as dependent on the upheaval brought to global trade by US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

The Taiwan Orchid Technology Park is the heart of an industry that holds more than 60 per cent of the US market for live orchids. More than 300 mostly small Taiwanese companies shipped overseas a total of 68mn orchid seedlings worth a total US$190mn last year, one-third of which went to the US.